Chapter 1 and 2: The God of Sex & Gold and Rock'n'Roll

Chapter 1 and 2: The God of Sex & Gold and Rock'n'Roll

Prologue:

“They say Syd Sinnerman is the greatest rock star in the world. Yes, the Godfather of Philosophic Rock needs little introduction 

History, when forgotten for long enough, evolves into mythology and the ancient legend of Rock’n’Roll shall have many glorious tales for future bards to sing.

Like that fateful day when three young men entered the little known Sun Studio in Memphis, Tennessee and one of them started ‘acting the fool’ sparking the sound that changed music forever. Or that evening when four lads from Liverpool appeared for the first time on the Ed Sullivan show, a moment etched into the memory of a generation.

Perhaps the future bards will have a special song for the time when a young man stepped out of the darkness, holding an arrow of light. And through his voice, sang God.”

Part One

Your mother should know

“Let’s all get up and dance to a song. That was a hit before your mother was born.”

Siddha Sinha was a regular nine-year-old. He did not stand out from the rest of the pupils of Don Bosco, Park Circus, one of the finer schools in Kolkata, the capital of the confusingly named eastern Indian state of West Bengal.  

His school uniform was just as scruffy as everyone else’s in spite of the universal allegiance of Indian mothers to washing powders promising whitening miracles for the equally miraculous sum of ten rupees. And just like the other fifty four boys in his class, he had a fairly straight-cut, uncomplicated attitude about life and the cards that it dealt him.

the good: ice-cream, chocolate, potato chips, cricket, Cartoon Network (not necessarily in that order, though); 

the bad: exams, tests, homework (a common theme perhaps?);

the ugly: the blunt end of Father Marshall's cane, the sharp end of Father Marshall’s cane, the blunt end of Father Marshall’s nose, the sharp end..

Indeed, if you were to look at the annual class photos of Don Bosco’s school magazine you certainly would struggle to spot Siddha from the sea of mischievous faces. Yet Siddha felt different. 

It didn't bother him, though, since the reason seemed pretty straightforward. Obvious to a certainty in fact. Because as far as he knew, everyone else in his class had a father. So yeah! Big deal, he figured.

Unfortunately, school children can be surprisingly mean and insensitive at times, and no matter how content and happy you are, there will always be someone who will poke you where you are most vulnerable, try and irk you, make you feel terrible, and get you down.

Siddha had just entered Class 4, when ‘Oliver Twist’ became a nickname of choice for him, after his class read an abridged version of the Charles Dickens classic, as part of their coursework. The teachers of course rebuked anyone they caught in the act, but it only made the name more popular, by according it a hallowed, forbidden importance, making it eventually evolve into a cautious norm. Siddha ignored everyone gamely, for a while, until he snapped one day, seemingly out of the blue.

Kunal thought he was just saying “Hi” to good old 'Oliver' with no bad intent when he found a carefully sharpened pencil jammed into his arm! He cried for his mommy and ran to the teacher. Irene madam did not approve of such violent behaviour from a child and immediately sent for Siddha’s mother. Father Marshall,  was informed within ten minutes and had the offender down in his office in fifteen. He then proceeded to reproduce some of his best work on Siddha's skinny arms and legs, an art form perfected by Don Bosco’s principal on more than one generation of more families than he cared to remember.

Mrs. Sinha was horrified, initially by the red marks on her son's wrists and then by Irene madam's imaginative rendition of what he had done. She wondered why he was acting up all of a sudden. She looked at her son sadly, as he stared intently at the wall, refusing to look back at her. Hell, he wasn't even a teenager yet.

Preeti Sinha, better known as Bengali television's ‘Shilpa Bhabhi,’ had tried her best to bring her son up as normally as possible. It wasn't easy considering she had to do it alone. Widowed just a few days after her son was born, twenty-three-year-old Preeti had been the subject of some discussion and substantial pity from relatives and acquaintances alike. That pity changed to shock followed by outright disapproval as Preeti decided to channel her grief into her passion for acting that had been hitherto interrupted by her marriage. After a couple of months of grieving in her in-law’s home, she gradually started chatting about her new hopes and dreams openly with the constant stream of visiting siblings and cousins hoping that casual conversation would lead the way to normalcy. But living under her in-laws’ roof she should have known better. Uncles croaked and aunts cackled. Preeti ignored them, but that's when her mother-in law-was shockingly blatant.

The memory of her mother-in-law's harsh voice still brought tears to Preeti's eyes. She had loved her husband in the short time that they were together, but somehow, beyond a certain point, grief can't be expressed in tears. Being accused of not feeling the aching sadness that haunted her existence was too much to bear, and she had to get away. She fled her in-laws’ house on a dark monsoon night with the one-year-old Siddha in tow and boarded a one-way flight for Mumbai, where her parents lived.

Her parents, while much more understanding and sympathetic, still saw eye-to-eye with her mother-in-law on the topic of acting. She wondered why they didn't understand. She was close to depression and urgently needed something to divert her attention from the past, something to give her purpose, a fresh start and no, remarriage was not the answer. Her son meant everything to her, but trying to re-establish a domestic life that would be the focus of her existence was something she couldn’t do to herself. Things settled into a quiet stalemate at home.

Luckily, when you are young, beautiful, and willing in Bollywood City, things have a tendency to work themselves out. It also helps to have a cousin working as an assistant producer in a movie set. Unknown to her parents, Preeti joined the rest of the wide-eyed pack of young actresses searching for a break.

She felt good about the whole thing though. Without ever participating in a beauty contest, she had always been the prettiest girl in her school as well as her university. If it was more than skin-deep beauty they desired (probably not, given that this was Bollywood), she had also done Shakespeare in college theater, playing Portia to perfection, the wannabe critics had said, Heck, she had a minor in drama, albeit from a drama teacher whose only credentials seemed to have been the bad cliché of effeminacy.

Unfortunately, circumstances had taken their toll and the once fresh-faced, vibrant girl had a haunting, slightly traumatised countenance that did not lend itself well to the silver screen. Casting directors stared at her for a while, as if struggling to find a nagging yet hidden flaw in a perfect painting, before saying no to her, some politely, and others not so. One of them offered her a bit role in a multi-starrer in exchange for a night of ‘Bollywood magic’ in his hotel room. He got the proverbial shoe thrown at him instead. 

It all seemed pretty hopeless, really, and after more than a year of rejection, she felt like giving up. To make things worse, her in-laws came for a visit to Mumbai, disparaging her and doting on their grandson with equal fervour. When they could dote no more, a family trip to the latest and greatest shopping mall was organized to buy the young emperor new clothes. 

Anil was sitting in the Food Court on the top floor of Mumbai’s latest and greatest shopping mall mulling over a concept that he had for a new show, a Bengali soap opera that would take him back to his roots in Kolkata, and that was when he spotted her. The personification of the protagonist of his newest project, the beautiful, yet hassled, young Indian bride.

It's a pity none of the thousands of girls who auditioned in Mumbai every day, had that quality, that severity yet delicacy of expression. He looked at the girl in white again, and then he understood why. A countenance of such intensity could only be carved out by tragedy's tools. This girl had been through a lot, he was sure of it.

Preeti saw the short old man staring rather unabashedly at her from a distance and turned away politely enough but with enough subtle disgust in her motion to make it clear what she thought of such perverse behaviour. Luckily her mother-in-law hadn't noticed, otherwise, knowing her, she would blame Preeti for leading him on or something.

Even with her back turned, she could still feel the intensity of his gaze. She turned back to flash a dirty look to hopefully get him to stop. And that's when she recognised him.

He was much older and haggard than she remembered him from TV but unless she was very mistaken, there sat AK Chowdary, veteran actor, ace director, and creator of classic TV soap operas such as Saath Din aur Saath Raat (Seven days and seven nights). It was shocking that he wasn't being mobbed, but then he was quite unrecognizable- probably deliberately-compared to the glitzy appearance he kept up in show premieres and interviews. She felt suddenly flattered that he was paying her so much attention despite her plain clothes and a faint smile appeared on her lips. 

This could be the opportunity of a lifetime. She was dying to go over and speak to him, but for her mother-in-law. She was debating whether to actually dare and approach a strange man-the repercussions would be tear-inducing-when her son made the decision for her.

The emperor, unaware that he had succeeded where a fairy tale counterpart had gloriously failed, made a break for it. He had had enough of adults holding his hand all day and when his mother's hold loosened, he decided to head into the wide-open spaces, which, in his two and something-year-old mind seemed to lead right into the food court. But, being somewhat of a newbie when it came to running, he had only managed to make it a few steps right up to the bearded uncle.

Preeti started after him but in her hurry stumbled and dropped her purse. She recovered fast and before Anil could get up to even try and help, she had gathered both child and purse and had fled the scene. All that was left was a single shiny sheet of paper on the ground. Anil picked it up and turned it over to find his beautiful yet hassled Indian bride staring back at him. He smiled.

A level below, Preeti smiled. She always carried a spare copy of her resume just in case. A week later, she auditioned for the role of Shilpa Sen for the upcoming TV show Aaj ki Raat (Tonight)

As she remarked, while being interviewed for the season 7 finale of the same, it took her less than a minute to secure the part.

***

Siddha was grounded for the weekend after the pencil incident, the grand closing statement in his mother’s lecture.

The nine-year-old told himself he didn’t mind in the very least. He could use a short break from his friends, none of whom were really his friends anyway. And more convincingly than that, he loved his house. He had lived there all his life and it had a nice familiar feeling that he never tired of. The large French windows leading to the garden outside, the staircase inside the house, the tens of cubbyholes and storage spaces"it all represented a realm of unexplored possibilities. Even all his friends loved visiting his house, as it was a welcome change from the cramped flats that most of them lived in. His mother had told him that the house belonged to her late uncle who had been an artist and had personally overseen the design of the house.

However Siddha had to admit that the house did feel quite empty most of the time given that only he and his mother lived there. Of course there was Bouncy, but he was more out of the house than in it, much preferring to be in the garden.

Bouncy was Siddha's year-old Pomeranian, constant companion, and partner in crime. Whether it was peeing on the neighbour’s tiny rose garden, chasing stray cats, or searching for hidden treasure or dinosaur bones in the various barren plots or parks nearby, Bouncy was Siddha's proverbial best friend. 

Presently, though, he was curled up sleeping under the indoor kennel that Siddha had painstakingly carved out of a few old cardboard boxes. Siddha poked him, but he just turned and grunted slightly. Siddha poked again. This time Bouncy growled. Siddha decided to try his luck one more time.

Bouncy snapped, though his mouth was far away from Siddha and he made no effort to get close.

Siddha gave up. Bouncy clearly was in no mood to play.

Siddha wondered what else he could do. It was bright and early on a Saturday morning, and with a stomach full of yummy breakfast his mom had prepared, energy levels were a tad high. 

He decided to take a trip to the attic where they stored all the old stuff. He always enjoyed going to that room since it contained all sorts of relics forgotten by time, as he liked to imagine. While there weren't exactly Roman helmets and Incan gold, there was still the creaky teak rocking chair and the really (really) old cassette player.

And then there were the three large cases sitting at the back, which looked like they were part of the house, so entrenched were they with the floor and walls. Siddha had never opened them but his mom told him that they contained musical instruments that used to belong to his father. She also told him not to ever open them since they were very old and fragile.

Siddha felt a little rebellious today. He was sitting at home due to something he hadn’t started and he guessed he deserved to do something bad to warrant his punishment. He eyed the cases trying to decide which one to open, finally settling for the brown guitar-shaped one. His fingers left marks on the dusty surface as he picked it up revealing the black leather beneath all the grime.

He was surprised initially by how heavy it was. He settled it down flat on the ground quickly"maybe a little too quickly, as it fell with a thud. Luckily, it was a solid kind of thud, which emphasises the sturdiness of an object rather than suggesting compromised rigidity.

He opened the latches on the side carefully to compensate for his earlier carelessness and then opened the lid with bated breath to reveal what lay inside. Decked in intertwining shades of honey to brown with bright chrome attachments and six long strings, there could be no doubt about what it was.

It was a guitar, an actual real life guitar!! Siddha grabbed hold of it by the neck and gingerly lifted it. It took a little more effort to pick up the rounded body, which was again heavier than he expected, and he very nearly dropped it again.

The head of the guitar had three words inscribed on it, which didn't really mean anything to Siddha, 'Epiphone' and separately below ‘Les Paul’ in nice italics. He guessed it was the name of the company but he felt that guitars deserved cooler names with numbers in them or something. No matter, it was still a guitar and that was cool by default.

Siddha tried plucking at the guitar’s strings. But surprisingly it barely made a sound. He tried hitting the strings harder but resulted in making a light almost jingly sound that he could barely hear. After a few more tries, he was no closer to making anything vaguely resembling music, so he figured the guitar was spoilt.

Siddha kept hitting the strings with varying degrees of severity hoping he could somehow jig it back to life.  Then he looked for buttons and knobs, something to turn it on. There were four knobs and one switch but they did nothing no matter how he twisted or flicked them. Then he realised how silly he had been. How would something work without a battery? He tried looking for a battery compartment but there wasn’t any as well. It was all quite frustrating.

He had all but given up when Bouncy entered the room running around in circles presenting a more engaging option for passing time. It looked like he felt guilty about his earlier grumpiness and had decided to compensate. Siddha followed the rotating canine out the door and caught the little creature before he could fall down the stairs

***

It was a good week later when Siddha was really bored again that he made his way back to the attic. This time armed with some good old fashioned google searching, he was able to spot, just a short distance away, a large boxy speaker-like object, emblazoned with another set of italics ominously saying “Marshall.” 

He gulped as phantom canes danced in front of his eyes but stayed focused.  He really wanted to figure out how to get the guitar going. It took him about ten minutes more of searching to locate a bunch of cables which seemed to fit both the end of the guitar and a slot in the Marshall. Then, as Holmes would have said (or possibly never said), it was quite elementary to connect two and two. And press that all important power switch.

However, the sound that followed didn’t resemble music, or anything remotely palatable to the ears.  Instead, it was a deafening boom, which almost knocked him backwards in Marty McFly-esque fashion. It also brought his mother running upstairs in a jiffy. He cowered as she entered expecting a telling-off. She looked at him, the guitar and the still blaring Marshall and then surprisingly smiled. 

She bent over and adjusted a couple of dials on the Marshall, cutting off the noise in the process

“Everything set to full??” She looked at him in surprise. 

Siddha looked away sheepishly. He had turned all the dials to maximum. More is better right.

His mother picked up the Les Paul and placed it on her knee with surprising deftness, brushing her dupatta (Indian scarf like garment) out of the way.

"So you want to play guitar, beta (son, also used to mean child)?” she asked.

Siddha nodded, thinking it would be best to agree. He was trying hard not to laugh, as she was looking quite ridiculous. Salwar kameez’s (Traditional Indian casual women’s dress) and guitars, unsurprisingly, do not gel but shockingly she could actually play the thing. Who would have known?

Siddha started proper guitar lessons the next week. His mother didn’t let him anywhere near his father’s guitar which was an electric guitar and hence made no sound until it was connected to an amplifier like the Marshall but instead bought him a new, cheaper acoustic guitar, which made plenty of sound without needing electricity. She promised that she would let him play the Les Paul, as she called it, when he got reasonably proficient. 

The guitar instructor or Masterji (honourable suffix used in Hindi to convey respect) as he preferred to be called was a thin cadaverous man perennially dressed in cotton kurtas (Traditional Indian long shirt wore by both men and women) of varying pastel shades. His teeth were stained brown with tobacco, something he smelt very strongly of, and he exclusively had black coffee with no milk or sugar. 

"Sa . . . Re . . . Ga  . . . Ma . . . Pa . . . Dha . . . Ni . . . Sa." Masterji plucked out the major scale in Hindi on the guitar for the umpteenth time. 

Siddha hated the routine. He wanted to learn how to play cool stuff not this same old nonsense. But with patience most unusual for his age, he persevered. After the major scale, Masterji proceeded to the harmonic minor scale followed by basic chords. Nothing even vaguely resembling a tune. And to make matters worse, Masterji had a reliable metronome on his antiquated smart phone whose dull beat Siddha had to follow day in and day out.

It was nearly a month of this torture when Masterji told him that he finally knew enough to start learning his first proper song. Siddha was very excited. He practiced for hours and hours before the class so that he could get into top form. His concerned mother reminded him to finish his homework first after hearing nothing but guitar sounds emerging from the room for the whole day. He didn't even go down to play cricket with his friends.

Masterji arrived at 7 pm as usual, wearing an uncharacteristically

bright green kurta, possibly in celebration of the occasion. However his coffee remained as black as ever.

"Today we are going to be learning one of my all time favourite songs," his dry voice betrayed no emotion as usual. " It is a great super-hit. You must have heard it on many occasions."

Siddha's pulse started racing. He hoped it was “Zinda (alive),” a song he liked with a super catchy guitar beginning. He hummed it to himself.

Masterji meanwhile was in a world of his own. He straddled Siddha's guitar with an almost dreamy look in his eyes. He then stretched his right arm then his left and then without warning, launched into the song.

It was all quite dramatic, a lot of fast notes strung together. Siddha had no clue what he was playing, but knew very well that Masterji was showing off a little because it looked really difficult to play. And then . . . 

“Jeena yaahan . . . marna yahaan (We live here, we die here), “Masterji sang in Hindi, croaking with passion previously unseen. His eyes closed, his hips swung, which was an achievement given he was sitting down, and the guitar swayed up and down. 

Siddha grimaced. 

A super-hit? Yeah it was a super-hit indeed…from half a century back! The only reason he knew the song was that old was because he had seen that classic movie with the sad joker.

He was disgusted. He hadn't slaved for three months to learn some long-forgotten movie songs that nobody, maybe not even his grandparents, listened to. Masterji, unfortunately, was oblivious to his pain.

From then on, Siddha was totally disinterested in his classes. Masterji tried everything. He tried English music, some nice cheerful Nursery Rhymes, but that seemed to put off the disciple even more. He brought a CD of Masterji himself performing at last year's Durga Pooja (Major Bengali Festival) society event to inspire the lad, but clearly, even the piles of praise being hurled at Masterji from the crowd did not register. As a last desperate attempt, Masterji tried discipline. Apart from a dirty look, the child did not respond. Then Masterji got fed up and complained to his mother.

Preeti tried to understand why and mend bridges for a while but, between the increasingly-hectic shooting schedule and managing Siddha’s homework, music classes did not quite figure high up in the priority list. Between an apathetic student and an irritated teacher, she had had enough and the classes stopped after two months, somewhere halfway in between learning the “Come September” theme and “Do-Re-Me.”

***

Rock you like a Hurricane

“Here I am, rock you like a hurricane”

Sophia was pissed. She wondered why she always let her friends talk her into such s**t. Here she was, standing in the middle of a room she didn’t want to be in, surrounded by a bunch of people she couldn’t care less for, trying to be something she wasn’t and never wanted to be.

“Smile please!” 

It was the photographer, a pesky, pimple-ridden specimen who had been getting on her nerves for the last half hour. Sophia used up every ounce of self-control she had to maintain a composed smile as the camera created a massive flash in the dim room.

“Perfect, perfect,” the photographer was pleased with his work. “Now, can we get one with all the Hall Queens next to the main banner?”

Sophia winced. Not another f*****g group shot!

But like a true professional, albeit one faking it, she didn’t let her emotions show. She followed the fifteen other girls "all but one, dressed in almost identical white backless evening gowns"to the spot where the photographer was pointing and positioned herself strategically in the corner, as far away from centre-stage as possible. She looked at the fancily-inscribed wording on the banner before turning her head towards the camera, wondering why this meant so much to so many people.

Miss NTU Beauty Pageant 

It was just another university event, organised by a bunch of lazy students who had signed up to the task just to tick the mandatory extra-curricular activity box. Somehow this particular event"through the combination of smart marketing by a high-profile event president, the over-hype created by his friends and the word of mouth of some impressionable freshmen"had acquired a life of its own. A casual observer could easily have been fooled into believing that this was a Miss Universe, or at the very least, a Miss Singapore Pageant from the way everyone was fawning over the contestants.

The majority of them, as one would expect in Singapore, were Chinese, their porcelain skin, luscious hair, and wispy figures doing fair justice to the ideal of Oriental beauty. Then there were the two Indian girls who were probably better suited to the taste of aficionados of songs such as Shakira’s “Hips Don’t Lie,” or even Sir Mix-a-lot’s “Baby’s got back”; and finally the single Malay girl, who was covered from head to toe, barring a gorgeously made-up face. Sophia actually found her the cutest of the lot. 

All the contestants were taking the pageant very seriously, she noticed, almost as if winning would propel them into a life of fame and fortune. Even though they were not all stereotypical airheads or bimbos, all that heavy make-up had clearly addled their brains. Possibly there was something suspect in the glue used to stick on the obligatory fake eyelashes.

Presently, the much-touted Event President " Eugene Chang"took a break from shouting instructions at the logistics crew and joined the contestants. Sophia sensed a couple of girls next to her go wobbly at the knees.

She wasn’t surprised. Classically tall and handsome, though not quite dark, Eugene Chang could easily see off all other contenders for “NTU’s Most Eligible Guy,” if such a reality show was ever cooked up by a suitably-silly student society (of which there was no paucity). Captaining the NTU Tennis team gave him that sporty bent, and to round things off nicely, he was the favourite for valedictorian of his graduating class in Chemical and Bio-Medical Engineering, the most difficult engineering stream of all they said. It also didn’t hurt that he came from an old shipping family swimming in cash. So chances were that he changed the car he came to University in as often as some foreign exchange students with questionable hygiene changed their shirts. Hopefully more often than they changed their underwear.

Like many other girls in NTU, Sophia had had the hots for him. A bit more than just the hots actually, if she ever felt like coming clean; but of course, she hadn’t done anything about it. Hell would freeze over before she ever made a move on a guy"any guy!  In the meantime her close friend, Rachel, unencumbered by such lofty preconceptions, had pounced. Eugene and Rachel had enjoyed a couple of weeks of the perfect relationship until a fateful night when she discovered that there were three other girls enjoying the same perfect relationship with him concurrently! 

Sophia looked at him gently flirting with the contestants right now and wondered how many of them he had slept with, was sleeping with, or would sleep with. It was safe to say that in a guessing game the highest number minus one would win.

“Okay contestants, half an hour to start, ok?!” Another one of the event organisers walked over, a pompous little guy whose spectacle frames and shirt seemed to be competing to be the pinkest in all the land. “You’re all familiar with the schedule, right?”

Some of the girls nodded half-heartedly, a reaction that didn’t satisfy the diminutive man. So he decided that the best course of action would be to go over every last little detail with painful, auditory ball-busting comprehensiveness.

As he droned on and on, Sophia was reminded of the last three days of excruciating torture. He had made them rehearse everything repeatedly, into the wee hours of the morning"from the entry sequence, each participant’s catwalk and even the swimsuit segment (not in costume; rather unfortunately for peeping male organising committee members).

“… and just before we start the Final Round, we have a performance by that jamband…what's their name ah….The Call of the Night." He was almost done with the list. A collective though barely audible sigh of relief swept through the room. "During the Final Round emotions will be high, but you all have to stay calm ok!"

“Relax brudder (brother),” Eugene interjected, putting his arms around a couple of girls, including a miffed Sophia. “My girls are brave. They can handle it.”

Sophia grimaced. Whatever she was, she certainly was not his girl. She subtly but effectively removed his arm and stepped away. Eugene barely noticed and nonchalantly placed his arm on another girl who was considerably more willing.

Ten minutes later, the contestants were ushered into the dressing room at the back of the auditorium, as the crowd started building up outside. Three make-up artists provided by the sponsoring cosmetics company had just arrived to offer their services to the participants.

Sophia looked into the mirror as she sat on the upturned dustbin the organisers deemed worthy of being a temporary dressing room seat. Large, bright, brownish-green eyes in a slightly long, heart-shaped face stared back at her. The ends of her long straight hair had been permed and tied up in an arrangement she hadn’t liked at first, but seeing it in combination with her rather Disney-princess-inspired dress (though just about revealing enough to make even Snow White turn bright red), it did seem to work well. Her large lips had been drenched in a dark shade of crimson, perfectly complementing her pale yellow complexion 

“Admiring yourself?” One of the make-up artists, a middle -aged woman with outrageously age-inappropriate purple spiky hair, appeared behind her shoulder in the mirror. 

Sophia turned red, the colour showing above the faint blush applied on her cheeks.

“No harm, dear. You have got to believe in yourself before anyone else believes in you.” The purple-haired lady gave Sophia a warm smile completely at odds with her Johnny Rotten sense of style. “But don’t worry, you are absolutely gorgeous.” She whisked out her make-up kit. “I am Mary by the way…Hi!”

“Sophia.”

Mary started touching up Sophia’s makeup. Sophia was about to protest but within seconds she could tell Mary knew what she was doing. So she sat back and let the older woman do her magic.

“You have got a very unique look, Sophia.” Mary spoke again for the first time after about five minutes, whisking out a hair brush. “Now if you don’t mind my asking, ummm . . . where are you from?”

“Uhhh, Singapore.” Sophia said innocuously enough, though she knew exactly where this was going.

“Yes of course. I mean . . . er . . . umm, if you don’t mind my asking another question. I must sound so pesky. What is your ethnicity?” she asked tentatively. 

“Why don’t you guess?”  Sophia never got tired of this game despite playing it with almost everyone who met her for the first time.

“Sophia Tan right?” Mary looked at the name list she was carrying.

Sophia nodded.

“Half Italian . . . half Chinese?”

Sophia smiled. Almost everyone had the same first guess.

“Nope.”

“But definitely Eurasian?” 

“Hmmm, you can say that.”

“I give up.”

Sophia smiled.

“Yeah, it’s a little difficult to guess. My dad’s from China, but his mom’s American. She was actually an exchange student in Beijing University when she met my granddad. And my mom is . . . ”

A loud announcement burst through the dressing room drowning out all conversation. 

“Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to the annual Miss NTU Pageant!”

The dressing room’s speakers had been connected to the main microphone in the auditorium. Thanks to the booming voice of the enthusiastic event host, none other than Eugene himself, it was now about as conducive to conversation as a war trench under heavy artillery fire. Mary finished on Sophia swiftly, checked via hand gestures whether she was happy, and then with a wink walked on.

As soon as she got up, Sophia was crudely pushed backstage where the sound was even louder, by an overenthusiastic organiser. She wanted to cover her ears, but couldn’t for fear of ruining her hair. It was also ridiculously cramped in there as the beauty contest participants had to share the space with the rest of the performers for the evening. 

The Lion Dance troupe, with its fifteen members and fifty props would have been bad enough on their own, but it looked like the organisers were intent on setting a new Guinness world record of some kind. So the five member band ‘The Call of the Night’ and all their equipment had been crammed into the small backstage space, to feed on the last vestiges of oxygen left in the room. To make matters worse, they were doing last moment checks on their instruments which got into everyone’s way, particularly the guitars whose head-stocks poked some of the beauty queens in places typically reserved for the special touch of their significant others only (or possibly Eugene).

Despite the uncommonly long moniker, ‘The Call of the Night’ was a fairly typical all-Indian, all-male rock band"a species that popped up once every year or two in NTU. Sophia looked at them, five guys dressed in black T-Shirts emblazoned with images of metal bands she had never heard of, complete with the bands’ horrific imagery like skulls, blood, pentagrams, the devil and other fancies of musicians who deemed themselves demented. Two of the guys were tall, two others heavy set and the last one skinny but they all had the same long disheveled wavy hair and sloppy appearance. The smell of smoke of one combined with cheap deo of another made for a concoction, which repulsed her slightly. She imagined that they would go up on stage and play some really heavy music that no one would recognise. It was quite the NTU Indian rock band tradition. 

They made no attempt to talk to the contestants unlike the other performers who were quite chatty. Sophia immediately recognised them for who they were"a bunch of nerds who had suddenly discovered heavy metal in University and now wanted to emulate their rock star idols, in an attempt to break away from the socially awkward shackles they were trapped in due to the blinkers of a strictly academically-focused upbringing. 

While they occasionally got pretty decent at the musicianship part of being a rocker, it was fairly safe to say that none of their idols had anything to fear from them when it came to matters of the fairer sex. Yes, it was the story of so many Indian Engineering student rock bands.

Sophia knew the type very well. She was half Indian after all. 

***

The audience clapped loudly as Sophia turned and made her way to the rear of the stage. She maintained her poise till the very last moment before disappearing into the safety of backstage.

“Water!!!” she gasped. She was sweating profusely, which the bright lights on stage had interpreted as a healthy shine. The organisers who were backstage were surprisingly well prepared, handing out towels and water bottles.

“How did I do?” The other girls were asking around. One of them was sobbing silently even though no one had been eliminated yet.

Sophia reviewed the last two hours quickly in her mind as she treated the water bottle with an enthusiasm that would have greatly excited male onlookers, had there been any. 

The initial sequence, when they had all entered, had been the cake-walk she had expected it to be and though she always told herself that she had no shortage of self-confidence, it had given her a much needed boost. The ensuing rounds had gone smoothly as well, though she felt her expression had been a little forced during the Diversity section. Why did she have to wear a sarong (traditional Asian one piece cloth dress), she had never understood. She would much rather have preferred a saree (A garment consisting of a length of cotton or silk elaborately draped around the body, traditionally worn by women from South Asia). And then they had to have the swimsuit section. The God damn, hateful, swimsuit section.

Again she cursed her friends, this time very specifically Rachel, who fancied herself as quite the talented fashion designer. It was Rachel who had insisted that Sophia wear a bikini, designed and stitched by Rachel herself, for this section. After discarding a couple of particularly skimpy examples (“It looks like it’s been designed by a horny guy!,” Sophia had protested), she had settled on a relatively sober white example that she could imagine herself wearing on the beach, albeit on a deserted day, with no random guys around. Rachel had tried to argue the case for the skimpier versions for a while, but had finally relented to Sophia’s choice.

The only thing risqué about this piece was the top, which revealed more of her breasts than she was comfortable with, but at the time she had inexplicably subscribed to the adage that ‘you’d have to show some skin to win.’ Looking at her reflection in the mirror, only seconds before she was due to go on, she didn’t quite see eye to eye with her former opinion. Maybe she was panicking a little, but it looked like her bikini top had been through the mother of all spin cycles and shrunk two sizes. She felt like her breasts were practically on display including their multiple tiny freckles that she was secretly insecure about. And her tummy looked so pudgy. Damn that triple-berry cheesecake she had had the other day. Stupid Melissa! Made her eat it even though she had said no twice!

It was too late to bail out. Not that she didn’t try; she lingered a full five seconds behind the stage entrance before a frustrated organiser pushed her on. Once on stage she was painfully aware of everyone eyeing her all over. She tried to walk confidently"but ended up dragging her feet. Just to mess things up even more, she started sweating uncontrollably in spite of the chilly air-conditioning that had had her shivering only a minute earlier.

As she made her way to the front of the stage, all the eyes, in the audience seemed to fixate on her chest, making her wonder if and then quickly confirm that a wardrobe malfunction was not imminent. Only one man, seated right in the front row seemed immune to her bosom’s newly found superpowers. Instead his eyes met hers betraying neither lust nor flirtation, but instead he seemed to be seeking refuge just like she was.

Almost magnetically, she returned the gaze focusing her attention on him as she walked forward. In the dim lighting it was difficult to figure out much detail of what he looked like, but Sophia didn’t have twenty-twenty vision, as verified by the friendly neighbourhood doctor uncle, for nothing.  She could make out that he was a fair bit older than her, maybe in his mid- to late-twenties, with a long unkempt beard matching an untidy mop of hair. He had pleasant features which looked vaguely familiar, but Sophia couldn’t quite place him apart from the fact that she knew he definitely wasn’t a classmate. Maybe he was an exchange student whom she had spotted at that party last week. Those sharp features did look a little exotic, possibly Mediterranean, but he was quite tanned.

Even though he kept looking at her, his gaze was far from unnerving. It guided her gently, like a single lighthouse, helping her chart a course across the troubled waters of public exposure. Miraculously, she found herself regaining her confidence, as she came back to the front of the stage managing to pull off the smallest of twirls. As she turned to return, she found herself thinking about those comforting eyes, wondering where they were looking now. 

She resisted an urge to turn back and take a peek, and concentrated on making it backstage without any hiccups. She was distracted momentarily by the sight of her retreating self on the big screen that was playing a live feed of the show above the stage. It made her suddenly conscious of her bare thighs, which appeared rather ‘thundery’ on the screen. 

The thought passed and now as she sat backstage, she tried to relax, emptying the last of the bottled water on her head absentmindedly as one of the organisers protested. She then changed quickly into her next and final costume, a simple white evening gown, and rushed to the side of the stage. She wanted to catch this ‘Call of the Night’ in action, in spite of how stereotypical they promised to be. A hilariously predictable show was exactly what she needed to de-stress.

The band was still doing final checks behind the drawn curtains when she got there. She caught the eye of the one of the guitarists as she squeezed behind one of the amplifiers. He looked nervously at her, dropping his plectrum, which hit the strings of his unusual-looking guitar which resembled an upside down V with an arrow head sticking out of it. It created a loud sound that resounded through the auditorium.

“Not now. “The other guitarist hissed at him. “Wait!”

It took ten minutes more for the band to set up their instruments, finally relieving Eugene, who had greatly stretched his abilities to keep an increasingly impatient audience entertained. He had tried goofy comedy at first and when that was losing its charm, had resorted to asking the audience simple questions to win vouchers from the event sponsors.

The guitarist whom Sophia had scared, looked like he was the singer as well, since he was the only one remotely close to a microphone. As the curtains went up, an unbelievably high-pitched voice emerged from his heavy frame.

“Rock you like a hurricane!” he screamed, launching into the catchy guitar riff which defined the Scorpions classic.

The spotlights switched on, flashing in coordination with the music, as the crowd roared. A large number of them got up from their seats and made their way to the front of the auditorium, where they jumped about, raised and waved their arms, scandalising the very honourable chief guest and distinguished members of the academic facility who were sitting in the front rows.

Sophia watched them intently for the next five minutes. She was familiar with the song and she had to admit that they were not too bad. She was enjoying herself and swayed a little bit to the music, laughing hard during the guitar solo when the other guitarist looked like he was having a cross between a fit and an orgasm.

The first song finished as the shy front man tried to catch his breath, panting heavily into the mike.

“Good evening,” now that he wasn’t singing, he had a very strong Indian accent, Tamilian, if Sophia wasn’t mistaken. “Are you enjoying yourself?”

It wasn’t really the best showmanship but their loyal, mostly-male fan following, who had gathered near the stage, were more than amused. They seemed hell-bent on creating chaos, even managing to form a mini mosh-pit in the middle of the cultured auditorium and roared in approval at the singer’s every word.

“We are the ‘Call of the Night’ and we are here to rock your world!”

Sophia sighed. How very original!

“We are, of course, named after the critically acclaimed album ‘The Call of the Night’ by Syd Sinnerman.” 

He paused. It was almost as if he was expecting applause or some kind of reaction. Unfortunately, no one obliged creating an awkward silence in the auditorium. 

The front man coughed nervously into the microphone.

“The legend of Syd Sinnerman needs no introduction of course . . . ”

Sophia wished he would get on with it. Everyone, from her sixty-six year-old grandmother to her sixteen-year-old cousin knew about the infamous rock-star who had gone crazy in dramatic fashion three years ago. Yes, people in Singapore had a proclivity for K-pop and hip-hop rather than Rock and Metal, but no one in the world had been exempt from Syd Sinnerman’s all-conquering wave of Philosophic rock. So this history lesson was rather unnecessary.

“… and now we would like to play one amazing song from that album. You may be familiar with the Grammy-winning video with the conversation with the devil.”

Sophia nodded unconsciously. She remembered the video vaguely. “A little known fact is that a part of this music video was shot right here in Singapore,” continued the front man. “Can anyone hazard a guess where?”

There was a burst of individual voices from all over the crowd. A few people shouted Clark Quay, the drinking and clubbing hub of Singapore, which was plausible. Another group shouted Orchard Road, the shopping hub, which made less sense. And someone even shouted Kembangan, the residential area where, coincidentally enough Sophia’s house was, which made no sense at all.

  “Wah lao (Singlish expression connoting astonishment, surprise). We have some interesting guesses!” Eugene stepped in with a second microphone, probably seeing a shot at redemption with the crowd. “But afraid none correct so far. Keep trying. And if you guess right, there is a grand surprise prize waiting for you. A gift voucher from our sponsors worth more than three hundred dollars.”

There was a sudden silence as digesting the prospect of juicy financial gratification rendered the crowd momentarily speechless.

“Henderson Bridge!” A raspy voice croaked out.

It was lucky that the speaker was seated in the front row or thereabouts as otherwise no one would have heard him.

“That is corrrrrrrrrrrrrect!” Eugene exclaimed in a deeper than usual voice, channeling his inner game-show host and oddly enough Zapp Brannigan of Futurama fame.

Some folks cheered. The rest of the crowd clapped half-heartedly, probably jealous.

"Would you mind stepping up on stage to receive your prize, sir?” Eugene said, possibly hoping that that would elicit more excitement.

Sophia’s heart skipped a beat as the respondent got up. He was none other than the bearded man, formerly notable for staring into her eyes. He was quite tall when he got up, a fact accentuated by his lanky frame though he did have the beginnings of a burgeoning belly. Sadly, the best way to describe his clothes was nerdy, with a long-sleeved striped shirt, baggy jeans and sports shoes. But even though she didn’t know him, the clothes felt out of character. Almost like he had woken up and only found someone else’s wardrobe to choose from. As he walked past her, Sophia got a better look at him, and up close, she realised it was no tan. He wasn’t exotic at all, he was clearly Indian. 

Sophia had to confess to her shame that she was slightly disappointed. Thanks to her mom being Indian, she was not like some of the Chinese girls in South East Asia who would never even dream of dating an Indian guy. Nonetheless, she wasn’t completely immune to the views of a reasonably-sized portion of the society she grew up in. It was a stigma, bubbling under the surface, fuelled by negative stereotypes that derived, as negative stereotypes often do, from observations misconstrued in the convenient fashion, of assuming the worst about the unknown. A good example was the commonly-held belief that Indians were smelly. Sophia’s theory was that this was due to the proliferation of low-wage construction workers in Singapore, typically from India and Bangladesh, who occasionally thronged public transport after a long, hard day of physical labor with all its olfactory offending ramifications. An alternative theory was that Indians smelled due to the amount of curry in their diet.

What surprised Sophia, however, was the pervasive nature of this perception, even amongst her friends, who were not racist in the least. Like her roommate, Melissa, who, when she had found out that Sophia was half Indian, had told her that it was really surprising because she didn’t “have the Indian smell” at all. Resisting the urge to give Melissa a tight one on the cheeks, Sophia had explained nicely to her that there was no such thing as the “Indian smell” and body odour was pretty much a universal human condition, not the privilege of one particular race. Indians being smelly was just the beginning. There were many other reasons that Indians were just not cool. However, to be fair to the girls Sophia had in mind, it wasn’t specifically Indian guys who had the pleasure of their disassociation. Chinese guys from Mainland China were typically no-no, too, for a multitude of equally-ridiculous reasons. The only advice that she could give to potential suitors of these girls was that their origins would need to stray either west of the Black Sea, or east of the Yellow, in order to see the tides turn and their luck change.

The bearded guy was starting to look very familiar to Sophia as he got closer. She hoped and prayed that he was not one of those creepy guys who lounged about around the running track when she took her midnight jog, giving her very lecherous glances. 

“Wow, that was a brilliant answer!!!” Eugene was really forcing the enthusiasm now, waving the voucher a little as he talked. “Are you sure you were not part of the production crew?” 

The audience obliged him for the first time and laughed. 

The bearded man smiled wryly.

“You could say that.” He drawled into the mike Eugene was holding in front of him.

“HOLY F**K!!!! Mother of god!!!!!!”

The excitable frontman of ‘The Call of the Night’, momentarily unaware that he was facing a live microphone, had just sworn in front of the very honourable University President, the Dean of his faculty of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, and two thousand other people who mattered, and cared a little less.

But despite the obvious consequences, the front man didn’t seem to give a f**k. He was staring wild-eyed at the bearded man, and if it hadn’t been for his guitar-strap, he would have dropped his guitar in amazement

Slowly but surely, the rest of the band started adopting the same expression with the drummer actually dropping his drumsticks to a massive clang.  They would have looked quite idiotic if this affliction hadn’t spread to Eugene and virtually everyone else in close proximity to the stage.

The camera zoomed in on the bearded man. The audience scratched their brains to recognise the familiar countenance. It was difficult at first, but when he pulled back the hair that was obscuring his face, everything was illuminated.

The man who gave the band their name and Rock’n’Roll a second lease of life, Syd Sinnerman himself was standing on stage

***